{"id":245397,"date":"2025-07-07T13:53:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T13:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/245397\/"},"modified":"2025-07-07T13:53:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T13:53:14","slug":"birmingham-bin-strikes-photos-show-apocalyptic-mountains-of-rubbish-on-streets-six-months-into-strikes-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/245397\/","title":{"rendered":"Birmingham bin strikes: Photos show “apocalyptic” mountains of rubbish on streets six months into strikes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photos show the streets of Birmingham drowning in “apocalyptic” mountains of rubbish six months into the city’s unprecedented bin strikes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Disgruntled residents say overflowing wheelie bins and piles of waste are making life a misery as the long-running industrial action continues in the Second City.<\/p>\n

Despite lengthy negotiations between the Unite union and Birmingham City Council<\/a>, there still appears to be no end in sight half a year on.<\/p>\n

Locals say they feel “forgotten about” as the city remains plagued by overflowing rubbish, foul smells and infestations of giant rats dubbed the ‘Squeaky Blinders’.<\/p>\n

Pictures taken on July 6 show huge mounds of trash littering the pavements, including dumped mattresses, boxes, black bags – and bins blocking the way of pedestrians.<\/p>\n

\"RubbishRubbish still piled up on the streets of Birmingham following six months of bin strikes.Birmingham residents on the city\u2019s bin strikes six months in<\/p>\n

Student Bethany Campbell, 22, of Selly Oak, said: “We just can’t believe it’s still going on, what is taking so long?<\/p>\n

“The worst part is that the decision makers probably don’t even live in Brum, so they have no idea what a nightmare this is for us.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The place stinks, it looks atrocious and residents just feel like they are being forgotten about. Nobody should live like this in modern Britain.”<\/p>\n

Student Theo Charlton, 21, also from Selly Oak, told the BBC: “The other day I was looking at everyone moving out and it was apocalyptic the amount of rubbish left behind.<\/p>\n

“People don’t prepare for leaving, they just dump so much stuff. I thought to myself, ‘that’s going to be there for ages, it’s not going to get collected.”<\/p>\n

\"AA dumped mattress in Birmingham after six months of bin strikes.Izzy Knowles – Liberal Democrat councillor<\/p>\n

Izzy Knowles, a Liberal Democrat councillor, said residents living in flats in Moseley had little to no recycling facilities and waste was becoming “contaminated”.<\/p>\n

She said: “The recycling is totally full up. It’s getting contaminated. Some don’t have cars, even if they go to the tip they’re not allowed in as pedestrians.”<\/p>\n

\"BirminghamBirmingham residents say overflowing wheelie bins are making life a misery as the industrial action continues.Sharon Graham – Unite general secretary<\/p>\n

The walkout began in January over pay cuts of up to \u00a38,000 impacting around 400 workers who are either former waste recycling collection officers or bin lorry drivers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The workers have a mandate to continue striking until December and last week staged a demonstration<\/a> outside the Local Government Association (LGA) conference in Liverpool.<\/p>\n

Sharon Graham, general secretary of Unite, said the union would be \u201crelentless\u201d in its pursuit of a fair deal.<\/p>\n

She said: “John Cotton needs to stop hiding from the biggest issue facing his council – the bin strikes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Birmingham residents understand exactly why the bin workers are striking:\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The scale of the cuts being proposed by the council are indefensible. Many of these bin workers face losing their homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s time John Cotton stepped up, entered the room, and resolved this dispute.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The protest should also put other councils attending the LGA conference on notice if they are thinking of trying to get workers to pay for mistakes made by politicians:\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Unite will be relentless in the fightback.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BinBin bags piled high on a Birmingham street.Birmingham City Council statement<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Birmingham City Council said: \u201cThe council recognises the significant impact that industrial action has had on the people and communities of Birmingham and thanks every resident for their continued patience under difficult circumstances.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The council is grateful for the community groups who are working to clear waste and helping their fellow residents during this challenging time.<\/p>\n

“Since the injunction was ratified we have been able to deploy all our available fleet meaning we have cleared the backlog and are able to implement our contingency plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cResidents of Birmingham want and deserve a better waste collection service and the restructure that Unite is opposing is part of the much-needed transformation of the service.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe council remains committed to resolving the industrial action in the best interest of all parties involved.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photos show the streets of Birmingham drowning in “apocalyptic” mountains of rubbish six months into the city’s unprecedented…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245229,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,393,728,4884,379,12,285,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-245397","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-environment","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-local-hubs","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}